Chuck Grassley: mr. grassleyly: thank you very much. mr. grassley: thank you very much. mr. president, the american economy remains on an unsettled footing, as we all know. now, there are some real signs of economic recovery but it shows a very fragile recovery.

Chuck Grassley: the consumer confidence level seems to be increasing ask that's good news. u.s. factory activity is up. that's good news. but also we're very nervous about the housing market remaining weak. the nation's unemployment rate

Chuck Grassley: stands at 9%, maybe officially now 8.9%, and now our economy is facing a significant headwind due to rising energy prices. since the unrest began in few tunisia, our energy markets have rocked upward by the uprisings

Chuck Grassley: in egypt and now in libya. libya produces roughly only 2% of the world's crude oil, wch of that going to europe. but even in libya producing such a small amount, still making a tremendous impact on the world market of oil.

Chuck Grassley: the uncertainty and fear about supplies, according to oil speculators, has driven crude prices to more than $100 a barrel. prices at the pump were already high before unrest in the middle east. the events going on in the north

Chuck Grassley: africa and the persian gulf area just worsen the problem. according to the energy information administration, gas prices jumped 19 cents during one-week period at the end of february. this is the second-largest one-week jump in more than 20 years, and i think over the

Chuck Grassley: cents higher than at this time last year. the average cost to fill up a tank of gas is likely around $50. and we all know that for a family struggling to make ends meet, these are valuable dollars spent at the pump, and most of these dollars, you know, are going overseas because you

Chuck Grassley: probably know that before this rapid rise in the price of oil, we were spending $730 million a day to imhort oil, and -- to import oil, and of course now that is a much higher figure. $730 million a day, probably close to $1 billion a day right

Chuck Grassley: now. our country is at the risk. our economy is at risk. our nation's security is at risk. and that's economic security but also that's related to our national security. our ever-increasing reliance on foreign sources for energy is

Chuck Grassley: undermining our nation's economic and national security. the activities in the middle east over the last six weeks should be an alarm bell going off. it should in fact be a wake-up call. let me be clear. i know that our economy -- that

Chuck Grassley: for our economy to grow and for business and individuals to thrive, we need access to reliable, affordable energy. i support an energy policy that i kind of say is like a four-legged stool, or another way of saying is, all of the above.

Chuck Grassley: obviously, all the sources of petroleum we can get our hands on and more domestically obviously than import. all sorts of alternative energy. conservation h's got to be a leg of -- conservation has got to be a leg of that stool.

Chuck Grassley: and obviously nuclear energy. so, to be repetitive, first we have to have access to oil and gas resources here a at home. two years ago the rallying cry was "drill here, drill now." it seems to me that still is the

Chuck Grassley: legitimate rallying cry for us at $3.51 oil. the idea that we have -- relimit our access to our own resources, which in turn leads us to go hat in hand to foreign dictators like see s.a.r. chavez and sheikhs is ludicrous.

Chuck Grassley: it is just silly to be sending more money overseas to give people resources, to train people, to train terrorists to kill americans. we currently import more than 6% of our crude oil, and it doesn't have to be that way. i know that we can't get to energy independence by drilling

Chuck Grassley: here and drilling now all by itself, but isn't it a little foolish to have our economy held hostage by events in libya, north africa generally, or the persian gulf area? and particularly with libya where only 2% of the world's oil comes from. the obama administration needs

Chuck Grassley: to put an end to the existing policy of a de facto moratorium through permitting. that's for drilling onshore and offshore of our own domestic supply. we need to make sure that we're doing everything we can to protect workers and the environment.

Chuck Grassley: but permitting delays and obstacles should not prevent our nation from moving forward to developing resources here at home. i also support efforts to expand the use of clean coal and nuclear energy. i also support conservation efforts. i agree that the cheapest form of energy is the energy that

Chuck Grassley: doesn't have to be used. that's conservation. here in the senate, i've supported policies aimed at reducing energy use in homes and buildings through conservation and energy-efficient technologies. i see the value in reducing overall energy consumption. i've also been a leader in the

Chuck Grassley: senate in promoting alternative and renewable energy. and why? because the supply of fossil fuels is a finite quantity. we must look to alternative and renewable resources so that we can improve our energy and our national security. this includes supporting energy from wind, biomass,

Chuck Grassley: hydroelectric, solar, geothey are mall, and biofuels. so i would houck now on the developing -- so i would focus now on the developing of homegrown biofuels. for many years congress has known about the need to tremendously an alternative to

Chuck Grassley: fossil fuels, particularly as a means of reducing or dependence on that fossil fuel. one of the first priorities was a tax incentive to encourage the use of homegrown ethanol. for over 100 years the fossil fuel industry has had a monopoly on our transportation fuel.

Chuck Grassley: they built the market. they own the infrastructure. they weren't about to use a product they didn't manufacture, own, or profit from. so congress created a tax incentive to encourage big oil to use the product mangeds it available to their consumers. it was paired with an import

Chuck Grassley: tariff to make sure that the only domestic ethanol receives the benefit of the tax incentive. so the tax incentive and the tariff work together to do two things: the incentive exists to discourage the use or to

Chuck Grassley: encourage the use of domestic ethanol. the tariff exists to ensure that we aren't giving a tax incentive to already-subsidized foreign ethanol. in other words, wouldn't it be silly to have a tax incentive for the production of domestic alternative energy and then

Chuck Grassley: allow the import of it to have taxpayers subsidize an alternative form of energy coming in from another country? we will, that wouldn't make sense. together these two approaches ensure that we don't replace our dependence on foreign oil with a dependence upon foreign ethanol.

Chuck Grassley: so the in my view was created to encourage big oil to use a domestically produced product and a renewable product. in 2005, congress created the renewable fuels standard. the standard was created to ensure that a minimum amount of renewable fuels was used in the

Chuck Grassley: supply -- in the fuel supply. it was strongly opposed by big oil, but it was enacted over their opposition. in 2007, it was gr expanded. it mandates the use of 36 billion gallons of renewable

Chuck Grassley: fuel annually by 2022. but that decision made in 2007 also limited the amount of ethanol that can be made from grain to 15 billion gallons. one of the criticisms that i hear occasionally is that

Chuck Grassley: ethanol receives both an incentive and a mandate. so i think we should address that point. first, while the mandate requires that the fuel be used, it does not mandate that the ethanol be produced domestically. the incentive acts as an

Chuck Grassley: encouragement to use home-grown products. it increases economic activity at home and works to reduce our dependence upon foreign oil and does it -- and it doesn't do any good if you're importing a domestic renewable fuel if it can be done here locally,

Chuck Grassley: creating the jobs here. secondly, the mandate acts as a floor to ethanol use, without the incentive, we would consume a bare minimum. the incentive encourages ethanol use beyond the mandate. some in the environmental community are quick to raise

Chuck Grassley: objections to the biofuels mandate, as we will as the incentive -- as well as the incentive. i would like to suggest to them that this is a clear example of limitless hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty here in this town. many of the loudest voices

Chuck Grassley: against these policies are the same voices who lobby meat for tax incentive and also mandates for wind, solar, geothey are mall and other renewable energy. i happen to be a strong supporter of electricity generated from wind and other renewable sources.

Chuck Grassley: i first authored the production tax credit for wind in 1992. over the years it's been expanded to include other types of resources. since as far back as 2003, environmental advocacy groups have been pushing for renewable portfolio standards, which is a

Chuck Grassley: mandate that utilities around the country use a certain amount of wind or other types of alternative energy instead of coal in the production of electricity. so, now what do we hear? they want the production tax credit for wind and other

Chuck Grassley: renewable electricity and a mandate that it be produced. yet they oppose the same policies for biofuels. that is an inconsistency. that seems to be an intellectual dishonest approach. that they would like to have this senator support mandates

Chuck Grassley: for wind as we will as a tax incentive for wind -- as well as a tax incentive for wind. but lobbying against this senator's approach to having a ttach incentive for other alternative energies www.ale as a -- well bass a mandate. i have been a champion of ethanol biofuels for a long tiesm i am well-aware of the

Chuck Grassley: role it plays to create a cleaner environment. it is improving our economic and national security and it's creating jobs and economic activity in rural america. in 2010, nearly 90% of all gasoline sold in the united states contained some ethanol. the 13 billion gallons of

Chuck Grassley: transportation fuel. what we use in internal combustion engines. u.s. ethanol production is larger than what we import from saudi arabia or even from hugo chavez's venezuela. that reminds me, i said "see

Chuck Grassley: s.a.r. chavez" when i first mentioned his name. the dictator of venezuela is hugo chavez. i hope that will be corrected in the transcript. without domestic biofuels, we'd be on bended knees, even more than we are today, begging others for oil.

Chuck Grassley: just think what's developed in the two weeks of libya. we have opec having to go to saudi arabia to make up the difference. just because of 2% of the oil production be affected. why would we want to be more dependent upon foreign sources

Chuck Grassley: of energy, particularly for our national security? without domestic biofuels, it seems to me we would be on bended if these even more than we are begging others for oil. ethanol is the only reliable,

Chuck Grassley: legitimate alternative to crude oil. domestic ethanol currently accounts for 10% of our transportation fuel there is no other renewable fuel that comes close to's kieving t achieving the economic ben pet benefits delivered by

Chuck Grassley: the biofuels we call ethanol. there are other well-funded misinformation campaigns to undermine the only alternative to imported crude oil. beg oil has been joined in recent years b by those in their

Chuck Grassley: desire to increase profits an raise food prices. they did this just two years ago. two years ago when corn was $7. they scapegoated ethanol. they needed a cover to raise the price of food. and then within seven months when the price of corn was down

Chuck Grassley: to half that price, $3.50 per bushel, did you see the price of food come down? no. and you're going to fiend the same theng now. -- you're going to find the same thing now. these people continue to perpetuate the same tireless arguments to undermine our efforts toward energy

Chuck Grassley: independence. they're more interested in protecting market share and profits than national and economic security. over the next few weeks i'm going to do everything i can to talk about this issue, to he'd educate the public on domestic biofuels.

Chuck Grassley: i'm not going to sit quietly while the national security ben pets of ethanol -- ben pets of ethanol are scoffed at. the american public deserves an honest fact-based discussion of the ben pets of reducing --

Chuck Grassley: benefits of hugo ch vice president and qaddafi. on territoriy fossil fuel. -- on dirty fossil fuel. i look forward to continuing this effort and would invite dialogue from any of my colleagu i yield the f the absence of a quorum.